Chirality (mathematics)

In geometry, a figure is chiral (and said to have chirality) if it is not identical to its , or, more precisely, if it cannot be mapped to its mirror image by rotations and translations alone. An object that is not chiral is said to be achiral. A chiral object and its mirror image are said to be enantiomorphs. The word chirality is derived from the Greek χείρ (cheir), the hand, the most familiar chiral object; the word enantiomorph stems from the Greek ἐναντίος (enantios) 'opposite' + μορφή (morphe) 'form'. Some chiral three-dimensional objects, such as the helix, can be assigned a right or left handedness, according to the right-hand rule. Many other familiar objects exhibit the same chiral symmetry of the human body, such as gloves and shoes. Right shoes differ from left shoes only by being mirror images of each other. In contrast thin gloves may not be considered chiral if you can wear them inside-out. The J, L, S and Z-shaped tetrominoes of the popular video game Tetris also exhibit chirality, but only in a two-dimensional space. Individually they contain no mirror symmetry in the plane. A figure is achiral if and only if its symmetry group contains at least one orientation-reversing isometry. (In Euclidean geometry any isometry can be written as with an orthogonal matrix and a vector . The determinant of is either 1 or −1 then. If it is −1 the isometry is orientation-reversing, otherwise it is orientation-preserving. A general definition of chirality based on group theory exists. It does not refer to any orientation concept: an isometry is direct if and only if it is a product of squares of isometries, and if not, it is an indirect isometry. The resulting chirality definition works in spacetime. In two dimensions, every figure which possesses an axis of symmetry is achiral, and it can be shown that every bounded achiral figure must have an axis of symmetry. (An axis of symmetry of a figure is a line , such that is invariant under the mapping , when is chosen to be the -axis of the coordinate system.

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Chirality (chemistry)

In chemistry, a molecule or ion is called chiral (ˈkaɪrəl) if it cannot be superposed on its by any combination of rotations, translations, and some conformational changes. This geometric property is called chirality (kaɪˈrælɪti). The terms are derived from Ancient Greek χείρ (cheir) 'hand'; which is the canonical example of an object with this property. A chiral molecule or ion exists in two stereoisomers that are mirror images of each other, called enantiomers; they are often distinguished as either "right-handed" or "left-handed" by their absolute configuration or some other criterion.

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Mirror image

A mirror image (in a plane mirror) is a reflected duplication of an object that appears almost identical, but is reversed in the direction perpendicular to the mirror surface. As an optical effect it results from reflection off from substances such as a mirror or water. It is also a concept in geometry and can be used as a conceptualization process for 3-D structures. Reflectional symmetry In geometry, the mirror image of an object or two-dimensional figure is the formed by reflection in a plane mirror; it is of the same size as the original object, yet different, unless the object or figure has reflection symmetry (also known as a P-symmetry).

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